1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to an icemaker in a refrigerator. Although the present invention is suitable for a wide scope of applications, it is particularly suitable for making ice in a refrigerator.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, a refrigerator is a device for storing food at a low temperature. The refrigerator is a home appliance for storing food in a frozen or cold state and tends to have a large scale with multi-functions to meet various kinds of consumer's tastes and the enhanced standard of living. Moreover, various convenient devices are provided to a refrigerator and internal configurations of refrigerator are diversified to fit the user's tastes and usages.
An icemaker in a refrigerator according to the present invention is applicable to various refrigerator configurations. In the following description, a bottom freezer type refrigerator, of which body is partitioned into upper and lower parts respectively corresponding to a cool chamber and a freezing chamber, is taken as an example for the description.
FIG. 1 is a front diagram of an exterior of a general refrigerator.
Referring to FIG. 1, a body 100 of a refrigerator approximately has a rectangular parallelepiped shape. An internal space of the body 100 is partitioned into upper and lower parts to configure a cooling chamber 110 and a freezing chamber 115.
A refrigerator door 120 is provided to an opening of a front side of the body 100. The refrigerator door 120 is provided to selectively open/close the open front side of the body 100, and more particularly, open front sides of the cooling and freezing chambers 110 and 115 and includes a cooling chamber door 122 and a freezing chamber door 128.
The cooling chamber door 122 selectively opens/closes the cooling chamber 110 provided to the upper part of the body 100. Like doors of a side-by-side type refrigerator, a pair of cooling chamber doors 122 are provided to left and right sides and rotatably configured to selectively open/close the cooling chamber 110 centering on both side axes, respectively.
And, the freezing chamber door 128 is provided to selectively open/close the freezing chamber 115 provided to the lower part of the body 100 and configured to have a drawer shape. So, the freezing chamber door 128 slides in or out back and forth to selectively open/close the freezing chamber 115.
Meanwhile, a dispenser 130 is provided to one of the left and right cooling chamber doors 122 opening/closing the cooling chamber 110. The dispenser 130 facilitates purified water or ice to be taken out without opening the cooling chamber door 122 and is provided to be exposed to a front side of the cooling chamber door 122.
FIG. 2 is a perspective diagram of a backside of a cooling chamber door shown in FIG. 1, in which an icemaker 10 provided to the backside of the cooling chamber door is shown.
Referring to FIG. 2, an ice-making room 140 is provided to a backside of the door 122 provided with the dispenser 130. and, an icemaker 10 is provided within the ice-making room 140 to make ice.
The ice-making room 140 is configured with a part recessed into an inner case 124 configuring the backside of the door 122. The ice-making room 140 is selectively open/close by an ice-making room door 148 rotatably provided to one side.
The icemaker 10 making ice, an ice bank 144 storing the ice made by the icemaker 10, and a transferring device 146 transferring the stored ice to a taking-out part of the dispenser 130 are provided within the ice-making room 140. And, they are directly assembled to an inner lateral side of the ice-making room 140, i.e., to the inner case 124.
However, the related art icemaker has the following problems.
First of all, the related art icemaker includes a heater to facilitate the ice to be separated. Yet, if heat from the heater is radiated into the refrigerator, objects stored at low temperature within the refrigerator are heated.
Secondly, if the heat from the heater is supplied into the refrigerator, the refrigerator is overloaded.